Control Yourself-- Take Only What You Need From It
Or: On Experiences, Comfort, and Self
Back in high school when I was having fifty existential crises an hour (as opposed to today's 50 per minute), I had quite a problem knowing what I was. Existent, assuredly; human, possibly-- but beyond that the question of "What am I?" was a puzzling and frustrating nightmare. Please don't mistake this question for the omni-present problem of "What should I be," for that's another gargantuan monster entirely. No no, this was slightly more manageable than that. It was a question of what I was right then, at that very moment... to my family, to my friends, and most importantly, to myself.
It was a strange time. With the dramas of my middle school days slopped together as one vague and slightly bitter memory and far more distant and unpleasant memories cropping up daily, I was brought down an awful lot. I hated myself... perhaps a lot of the time. I was a good student, but what was that worth? Who wasn't a good student? I was not an impressive artist or performer. My once firm idea of morality was left shaky in the wake of post-religion and a need to feel at least somewhat independent from my upbringing. A couple years of that sort of thing went by and I had come to find myself avoiding looking at too closely in the mirror for fear that I might find a monster-- and a great deal of guilt and shame with it. What had I become? It seemed like I could succeed only in spreading misery and suffering through every possible venue, be it unintentional teasing, indifference to my friends, not being able to return other peoples' feelings for me, etc.. I didn't understand it... wasn't I just living the best way I knew how? Wasn't I just trying to be happy? It wasn't good enough. I was no longer good enough, and it killed me.
I began to idolize my former self, a blond angel writing stories and drawing pictures, thinking that one day he'd do that for a living and make other people happy. He did was he was told (for the most part), and wasn't too concerned about the future because it would definitely just work itself out. He was nice to everyone, being the leader and making up games for all to play. That is what I wanted to be... someone carefree, someone good, someone innocent of everything that I had ever done. This idol became known as "the boy," and after a while I started to think that I had killed him... that if I were to compress the years between him and I, it would be nothing short of wrapping my hands around his poor little throat and squeezing and squeezing until his face turned blue and his neck snapped.
Somewhere along the way, my critical introspective thinking was able to destroy this mindset. Looking back on it, it was so fucking self-destructive. I had somehow managed to separate what I liked about myself and what I didn't like about myself into two different entities: what I was, and what I could no longer be. I had killed the boy, and there was nothing I could do to bring him back. I used to be so interesting, I used to be so good, I would think. Too bad I have fucked up too badly to ever get that back.
But then I started doing a bit of role reversal... Was I really killing the boy? Or was it the other way around? The boy's mere existence destroyed me. I was drowning in the impossibility of once again becoming him. Everything I did was in vain because he was no longer at my side. So who was really killing who? Really... no one was killing anyone. I was just killing myself, plain and simple. See, despite appearances, the boy had a mean streak in him. He was unpleasant sometimes, and he did unpleasant things. Memory is amazing in that it likes to forget faults. The monster wasn't all bad either... he was pleasant sometimes, and he did pleasant things. Present events always tend to be more unpleasant than past ones...
This unfortunate "dual-personality" mentality remained with me until freshman/sophomore year of college, until it finally occurred to me how stupid it was to romanticize about my childhood self. He's not a different person. He's me. I'm me. We're me. He did what he did, I did what I did, and as a result, he became me. There's no reason I should believe that I am any less kind, or less funny, or less creative than I was then. It's a prime example of Sartre's idea of bad faith: all that time I had denied myself the opportunity to be better because I had instead chosen to become an inert object based on the false premise that I might as well not try since I can't hope to be as good as I once was.
So... yeah. That was dumb...
Unsurprisingly, solving that problem only generated more. With the obstacle of seeing myself as a monster removed, I was now forced to take responsibility for my current self. It's terrifying, really. Every choice is made in anguish-- you must make a choice, and that choice will have consequences. Without being able to blame the monster anymore, I could only blame myself. My REAL self-- the boy and the monster combined. This anguish is the cause of much current depression. I'm never as good as I want to be, and I only have myself to blame for it. Still... with work, I will become better. I need to dedicate more time to myself and the things I have to do. I need to start thinking of the things I have to do as the things I WANT to do, because in all reality that is what they are. They're just terrifying because I might fail, because I've already waited too long to take action, so I don't take action at all and days go by and suddenly it's too late to do anything at all... and then it's all my fault that I failed. Perhaps if I had just tried from the get-go I would have succeeded...? Not really a surprising concept, I know, but also paradoxically a startling one. When I start blaming my good half for things I do wrong (in addition to my bad half), a whole different mentality emerges. I want to do better, I don't just want to let it go. Interesting, that...
The artist in me much prefers it this way. The blond angel and the awful, ugly menace reuniting and holding hands through the struggles of life. Joint blame and praise is given to both. They share life's ups and downs, exchange high fives and fuck you's, and try not to go to bed angry.
Reuniting these two has made for a lot of uncomfortable feelings. I often feel poorly because I feel like I'm not trying as hard as I could be. Comfort is nice, and is necessary to be a healthy human being, but I can't say it better than Fiona Apple did, that is, "I'm good at being uncomfortable so I can't stop changing all the time... They're no good at being uncomfortable so they can't stop staying exactly the same." Perhaps this constant feeling of unease is a kind of critical self-analysis that is allowing for me to become a better person?
Perhaps it's best to be discontented.
Happy, but dissatisfied.
Does that make sense?
Sorry for spelling errors or messed up sentences... It's late and unedited and I'm posting this.
Back in high school when I was having fifty existential crises an hour (as opposed to today's 50 per minute), I had quite a problem knowing what I was. Existent, assuredly; human, possibly-- but beyond that the question of "What am I?" was a puzzling and frustrating nightmare. Please don't mistake this question for the omni-present problem of "What should I be," for that's another gargantuan monster entirely. No no, this was slightly more manageable than that. It was a question of what I was right then, at that very moment... to my family, to my friends, and most importantly, to myself.
It was a strange time. With the dramas of my middle school days slopped together as one vague and slightly bitter memory and far more distant and unpleasant memories cropping up daily, I was brought down an awful lot. I hated myself... perhaps a lot of the time. I was a good student, but what was that worth? Who wasn't a good student? I was not an impressive artist or performer. My once firm idea of morality was left shaky in the wake of post-religion and a need to feel at least somewhat independent from my upbringing. A couple years of that sort of thing went by and I had come to find myself avoiding looking at too closely in the mirror for fear that I might find a monster-- and a great deal of guilt and shame with it. What had I become? It seemed like I could succeed only in spreading misery and suffering through every possible venue, be it unintentional teasing, indifference to my friends, not being able to return other peoples' feelings for me, etc.. I didn't understand it... wasn't I just living the best way I knew how? Wasn't I just trying to be happy? It wasn't good enough. I was no longer good enough, and it killed me.
I began to idolize my former self, a blond angel writing stories and drawing pictures, thinking that one day he'd do that for a living and make other people happy. He did was he was told (for the most part), and wasn't too concerned about the future because it would definitely just work itself out. He was nice to everyone, being the leader and making up games for all to play. That is what I wanted to be... someone carefree, someone good, someone innocent of everything that I had ever done. This idol became known as "the boy," and after a while I started to think that I had killed him... that if I were to compress the years between him and I, it would be nothing short of wrapping my hands around his poor little throat and squeezing and squeezing until his face turned blue and his neck snapped.
Somewhere along the way, my critical introspective thinking was able to destroy this mindset. Looking back on it, it was so fucking self-destructive. I had somehow managed to separate what I liked about myself and what I didn't like about myself into two different entities: what I was, and what I could no longer be. I had killed the boy, and there was nothing I could do to bring him back. I used to be so interesting, I used to be so good, I would think. Too bad I have fucked up too badly to ever get that back.
But then I started doing a bit of role reversal... Was I really killing the boy? Or was it the other way around? The boy's mere existence destroyed me. I was drowning in the impossibility of once again becoming him. Everything I did was in vain because he was no longer at my side. So who was really killing who? Really... no one was killing anyone. I was just killing myself, plain and simple. See, despite appearances, the boy had a mean streak in him. He was unpleasant sometimes, and he did unpleasant things. Memory is amazing in that it likes to forget faults. The monster wasn't all bad either... he was pleasant sometimes, and he did pleasant things. Present events always tend to be more unpleasant than past ones...
This unfortunate "dual-personality" mentality remained with me until freshman/sophomore year of college, until it finally occurred to me how stupid it was to romanticize about my childhood self. He's not a different person. He's me. I'm me. We're me. He did what he did, I did what I did, and as a result, he became me. There's no reason I should believe that I am any less kind, or less funny, or less creative than I was then. It's a prime example of Sartre's idea of bad faith: all that time I had denied myself the opportunity to be better because I had instead chosen to become an inert object based on the false premise that I might as well not try since I can't hope to be as good as I once was.
So... yeah. That was dumb...
Unsurprisingly, solving that problem only generated more. With the obstacle of seeing myself as a monster removed, I was now forced to take responsibility for my current self. It's terrifying, really. Every choice is made in anguish-- you must make a choice, and that choice will have consequences. Without being able to blame the monster anymore, I could only blame myself. My REAL self-- the boy and the monster combined. This anguish is the cause of much current depression. I'm never as good as I want to be, and I only have myself to blame for it. Still... with work, I will become better. I need to dedicate more time to myself and the things I have to do. I need to start thinking of the things I have to do as the things I WANT to do, because in all reality that is what they are. They're just terrifying because I might fail, because I've already waited too long to take action, so I don't take action at all and days go by and suddenly it's too late to do anything at all... and then it's all my fault that I failed. Perhaps if I had just tried from the get-go I would have succeeded...? Not really a surprising concept, I know, but also paradoxically a startling one. When I start blaming my good half for things I do wrong (in addition to my bad half), a whole different mentality emerges. I want to do better, I don't just want to let it go. Interesting, that...
The artist in me much prefers it this way. The blond angel and the awful, ugly menace reuniting and holding hands through the struggles of life. Joint blame and praise is given to both. They share life's ups and downs, exchange high fives and fuck you's, and try not to go to bed angry.
Reuniting these two has made for a lot of uncomfortable feelings. I often feel poorly because I feel like I'm not trying as hard as I could be. Comfort is nice, and is necessary to be a healthy human being, but I can't say it better than Fiona Apple did, that is, "I'm good at being uncomfortable so I can't stop changing all the time... They're no good at being uncomfortable so they can't stop staying exactly the same." Perhaps this constant feeling of unease is a kind of critical self-analysis that is allowing for me to become a better person?
Perhaps it's best to be discontented.
Happy, but dissatisfied.
Does that make sense?
Sorry for spelling errors or messed up sentences... It's late and unedited and I'm posting this.